Phantasmagoria
by Mnemosyne's Elegy
Summary: It's in the dead of winter's night that the dark-haired boy slips out into the snow-covered streets, dragging his ghosts behind him.


**Note: This one might be an acquired taste X) I read a short story and fell in love with the style, so of course I immediately sat down and wrote something mimicking it. Which means present tense, an omniscient narrator, and descriptive prose. It's also combined with my style... You guys wouldn't know since I picked up a more concrete, dialogue-focused style before I started posting here, but my writing used to be like wading through a freaking garden. By which I mean that it was flowery as hell. On a scale of lilac to indigo, I'll say that the prose here is at least a solid violet. By which I mean that it's purple X) But hey, it was fun to play with.**

 **Also, this might really only be horror in the vaguest of ways, if you sort of squint at it and possibly drink yourself into a stupor first. But you know what, this is the first time I've felt able to tag something as supernatural _or_ horror, so let me have my day in the sun XD**

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It's the dead of night when the dark-haired boy slips out of his apartment as silently as a ghost, emerging into the snow-covered streets beyond. Clouds cover the moon, dark gray haze blocking out the silvery light and leaving the city shrouded in shadow. The boy hesitates for a moment, staring out into the darkness, then closes the door behind him. The snick of the latch is soft, even in the eerie stillness of the night, but he jumps anyway.

He hovers on the doorstep, looking up and down the street, but then steps out. The smoky clouds drift away and his face shines bone-white in the moonlight, dark eyes glittering faintly as a biting gust of wind sweeps past and he pulls his coat closer. Glancing around at the newly illuminated street, he tugs up the fur-lined hood of his coat to hide the unruly black hair and wide-eyed face. He shivers again, his breath condensing into an opaque cloud in the chill night air.

You might be forgiven for thinking that he is cold.

He is not, or at least not in any way as to be discernable. The cold is his element, and he pulls the coat closer about himself less for warmth than for some small measure of comfort and protection.

No, it is not the cold which bothers him this night but the ghosts.

What ghosts, you might ask. Ah, but he has much the same question, poor fool. The answer would be far more useful to him than to you, I daresay, but he is no closer to finding it than you are.

For now he is just running from the nightmares. He is no stranger to nightmares, of course. He's had those for years, a scar that never quite healed after the demon tore his family apart before his very eyes. The worst are the ones that leave him empty and sad, waking to harsh reminders of the past. Or so he thought. Tonight he has woken in fear instead, and this fear cannot be quelled so easily.

His heart is in his throat as he starts down the street, and his head swivels back and forth as he surveys the buildings that rise from the snowdrifts, dark shadows against the night sky. His boots crunch softly in the snow, leaving deep footprints in his wake. The snow is still falling gently, and begins the slow but steady task of filling in the imprints marring the otherwise pristine blanket. Give it another hour or two, and it will be like he never passed through here at all.

A sharp clanging sound rings out from a nearby alley and he startles, spinning to face the danger as his heart hammers in his chest and his hands rise in preparation to defend himself. For a long moment he keeps his eyes fixed on the dark maw of the alleyway, but nothing emerges. Somewhere within, an opportunistic animal is braving the cold in the pursuit of food, clumsily colliding with a metal trashcan.

He knows this. Or, at least, he knows that this is the most likely source of the sound. Somehow, this does little to calm his racing heart.

He darts a glance back down the street, past the rows of stony sentinels with their dark eyes and sleeping occupants, towards his apartment. Perhaps, he thinks, it would be best to go back. It is silly to wander the streets in the dark, and sillier still to do so while childishly afraid of things that go bump in the night.

And yet, the idea of going back fills him with just as much dread as the thought of pressing forward. He left in the first place because the small rooms had begun to feel cramped and suffocating, ghosts from his nightmares swirling about and making it difficult to breathe. Whatever it is that waits for him, it lurks in his home too.

He will go on, for better or for worse.

His strides are just a little too quick as he makes his way through the slumbering city. He has the horrible feeling that he is all alone, that the city is not slumbering but dead. The looming buildings and oppressive silence give the impression of a solemn cemetery, the tombstones that rise out of the night guarding the bodies within. He dares not think like that for too long. The people are sleeping inside their homes, and they will wake at morning's light.

Death does not stalk these streets, no matter how much it feels as if it does.

In the corner of his eye, a shadow twitches. He spins about, his heart thudding so hard against his chest that he feels as if he will be sick, and scans the streets. Nothing moves. It is just his imagination.

Suddenly he feels exposed, standing in the middle of the road with the dead-eyed buildings surrounding him in tight rows. He is the only thing moving, the only thing breathing in this city. Anything could be lurking in the shadows between the houses or behind the curtains of their darkened windows. Watching him.

He can feel their eyes, and another shadow skitters across his path. Swallowing hard, he starts forward again. He walks faster now, eager to escape this urban prison. The urge to run to one of his friends almost overtakes him, but he pushes it aside. He has no intention of getting himself teased for his silliness. And silliness it is.

He wouldn't say that he doesn't believe in such things as ghosts and demons, if only because he has seen stranger things in this world, but he considers himself to be something of a skeptic. He believes in demons, but in the ones that tear apart families and haunt nightmares, not in the ones that attach themselves to frightened passersby. And if ghosts exist, he suspects that they have better prospects than to haunt him tonight.

There is nothing to be afraid of. The ghosts and demons are inside his head, born of memories and nightmares. The streets are empty of such things.

Still, he breathes a sigh of relief as he breaks free of the city sprawl and into a wide stretch of open ground. The edge of the forest is visible several hundred yards away, the trees heavy smudges of black against the night.

His relief is short-lived. If he felt exposed in the city, it is a hundred times worse now. Here, between the city and the trees, he is the only thing standing on the flat plain. He needs to find cover. Glancing backward, he is greeted by a nest of shadows. For a moment, he swears that he sees a pair of reddened eyes flicker into existence to watch him.

He turns and heads for the trees. He will not run, because that would be ridiculous. He certainly does not believe in ghosts, he tells himself. Still, he covers ground in record time, unwavering gaze fixed on his forest refuge. He does not allow himself to look back. Instead he looks forward, but the insidious doubt begins to worm itself in anew.

The evergreens have kept their needles, the snow on their boughs gleaming faintly in the moonlight, but the trees that have lost their leaves are bare and dead. Their limbs twist about tortuously like writhing souls, and the blackness among their trunks is so thick and impenetrable that anything could be lurking there.

He has the sudden feeling that something is watching him from among the trees, something malevolent and much too interested in him. The shadows no longer look welcoming but malicious. They stretch out from the bases of the trees' trunks, reaching for him like gnarled, bony fingers.

He lets out a shuddering breath and it lingers in the air, a hazy cloud that morphs and shifts in the breeze. It twists a little too far and looks rather like a ghost, patches opening to reveal the night beyond like dark, gaping eyes staring back at him.

He closes his eyes and walks right on through. There are no ghosts here. He will go to the forest, wander until he feels calm enough to return to his apartment, and not worry about such ridiculous things. He is, he reminds himself, a rational person who doesn't believe in such things. And even if these things did exist to plague him, he is a powerful mage who can defend himself.

Could his magic actually ward off ghosts?

Well, that is irrelevant, anyway. There are no ghosts to ward off.

Still, he hesitates just outside of the trees' reach for a long moment. A hint of wind tickles his ear, a soft breath of chilled air. Something large is breathing behind him, trying to goad him into turning around.

He can't get into the shelter of the trees fast enough. The pines are tall here as they reach for the sky, and they cast the land beneath them into shadow. It is painfully dark, and he stumbles more than once over a root or stone half hidden by snow. It's almost worse when he hits a stretch of bare-limbed trees, though, if only because the moonlight filtering through their branches is fodder for warped shadows to spring out and bend towards him.

A soft scuffling sound makes him jump, but then he shakes his head and presses on, shrinking further into his coat. That was just one of the nocturnal forest dwellers. There are many of them out here, and it is perfectly natural to hear one every now and then.

Then a sharp scraping sound comes from right behind him, and he is moving before he even realizes it, diving forward and racing through the labyrinth of tree trunks. That is _not_ a forest creature. For all you might think him silly, he knows the difference between what is natural and what is not, or, at least, he would like to think so. It feels entirely different. The danger is palpable, a taste of iron and fear hanging in the air.

He is a skeptic, _but there is something behind him_.

His foot catches on a root, and he crashes to the ground face-first. His startled cry is quickly cut off as the wind is knocked out of him, and what sound escapes his lips echoes through the darkened forest for a moment before being swallowed by the night. He inhales sharply, and the air is like ice-cold knives shattering in his mouth and scraping down his throat into his lungs.

For an instant he can't move, just squeezes his eyes shut and waits for the beast behind him to pounce. Then he comes to his senses and jumps to his feet in such haste that he stumbles. He's running almost before he regains his balance, desperate to get away from whatever is following him.

 _There is something following him._

There is something crashing through the sparse undergrowth behind him—he can hear it over his own pounding footsteps. He can almost feel needle-sharp teeth snapping at his heels, smell the fetid odor of decomposition that comes with the chill breath misting in the air, hear a low growl over the cracking of twigs beneath his feet. The trees are not impartial witnesses but lean towards him, branches snagging at his hood and coat.

He puts his head down and runs on, his breath coming in short gasps that burn his throat with the cold. Skeptic or not, he is unwilling to turn and face whatever is behind him.

He needs to get away from these infernal trees and the shadows that dance and leap among their branches. There's a small lake up ahead in a clearing. He has gone there before to swim or to skate on the ice in the winter. It will be frozen now, and he will be able to face his pursuer without the interference of the shadow creatures peering at him from the trees.

A few minutes ago, he would have said that there were no such things as ghosts or demons that haunted the woods at night. Now, he is not so sure.

The branches whip past his face, tearing his hood off and scraping against his skin, but his focus is on his feet. If he can just keep going and not trip over the underbrush…

He bursts into the clearing and races for the lake. It's covered in a gently sloping bank of snow, but he knows that it's there. He can feel the ice calling to him, and as he steps onto its surface, some of his fear abates.

He has won the race.

He looks back, eyes narrowing as they search the dark line of trees encroaching on the clearing's edge. The shadows flicker and a pair of dull red eyes stares back at him, but then everything seems to slide back into the cover of the trees. Nothing moves, but he does not feel safe.

There has been some debate over the years whether this is an inordinately small lake or an overly large pond, and the question has never been satisfactorily resolved. He maintains that it is a tiny lake, if only because Natsu insists that it is an overgrown pond. Whatever the case, it's small enough for the entirety of it to be visible inside the ring of trees surrounding it, but big enough that when he wades through the snow to its middle, he feels almost safe. At the very least, he will be able to see anything coming after him as soon as it breaks from the trees, and he is far enough away to prepare himself to run or fight.

When he reaches the middle of the lake, he uses his boot to push the snow aside and uncover a small patch of shimmering ice. He drops to his haunches and presses his hand to it, reveling in the feel of the chill seeping into his skin. It calms him almost instantly, bringing him into contact with his element in a way that gives him immense comfort.

For a moment, he can even feel something more. It's in the coolness of the breeze that brushes tenderly along his cheek, the sensation of being held in arms whose warmth come only from love, the comfort pressing in around him from the winter air. Ur is gone, what remains of her has melted into the ocean and not into the water trapped beneath the ice of a forest-bound lake, but he can almost feel her beside him.

 _'Be not afraid. I will seal your darkness.'_

If ever there was an angel, it was her. He swallows hard past the lump in his throat— _God_ , does he miss her—and begins clearing away more of the snow to reveal the ice underneath. Ur is as much a product of his imagination and nightmares as the ghosts pursuing him, but for now he will accept her comfort nonetheless. If he looks up then she will not be behind him, but even the reminder of her is enough to keep the demons at bay.

He methodically clears the ice, pushing the excess snow to the edges of the lake. It gives him something to do in order to keep his mind off of the darkness pressing around, and he throws himself into the work wholeheartedly. The more ice he uncovers, the more his confidence grows. It feels a little more like home.

Occasionally the ice creaks under his boots, thin and brittle. It makes a smile ghost over his face, and he rocks back on his heels so that the ice groans again. It would be foolish for most people to tread here, but he is not most people. He can read the ice, can feel its weak spots and sturdy patches, and he knows exactly how far he can push it before it breaks.

You might ask why he does not just ice over the entire lake and have done with it all, given the extent of his magic. Ah, you think like someone who has not grown up in the snow and lived with the ice. He feels secure with this ice, not just because any charging beast will fall through, but because he is the master of this domain. He revels in the power of being the only one who knows where to step, how hard to press, which path to take.

Call him silly and foolish if you wish, but ice mages can be a pretentious lot when it comes to their precious ice.

He has no way to measure the passing time, but it is quite a while before he finishes his task and retreats back to the center of his icy fortress. The ice shines and glitters under the moon, and it tugs a fond half-smile out of him.

Then he looks back out at the dark mass of trees surrounding him, and the smile fades. He tells himself that he is not planning to stand out here on the ice all night, until the sun chases away the shadows and it is safe to traverse the forest once more. But if he waits a while in his safe haven until he works up the nerve to brave the darkness again, who could blame him?

So he waits. And waits.

Yes, yes, the story will go on. Your impatience in rushing it to its inevitable conclusion is understandable, but perhaps you might find it in your heart to be merciful and tolerate the stalling for a moment more.

He waits a long time—longer than you would have the patience to abide, I fear—before something shifts. The soothing presence of Ur beside him, be it reality or his imagination, suddenly turns dark. A biting wind howls across the lake and drags its fingernails across his skin. He turns, his heart in his throat, and sees the shadow pinned to his feet begin to morph, stretching out into a distinctly non-human shape. It billows outward, pooling on the ice in a shape that appears distinctly demonic—one that he recognizes from his memories and nightmares.

A pair of crimson eyes flares to life, twin coals staring back at him, and a gleam of white against the black of the shadow gives the distinct impression of rows of pointed teeth. The shade peels itself off the ice to tower over him, blotting out the moon.

 _'Be afraid. Your darkness will consume you.'_

A strangled sound works its way out of his throat as he backs up, shaking his head in stupefied denial. Had he ever felt a soothing presence at all, or had the demon been working its way closer and closer all along, worming its way into his sanctuary?

The monster reaches for him, claws slicing the air, and its maw gapes in a silent roar. He turns to run, but the shadows in the trees have sprung back to life as well, writhing in a mass of tangled limbs and silent screeches. But he has nowhere else to go and the demon at his heels frightens him more than anything else, so he runs.

The ice creaks underneath his boots as the heavy rubber pounds into its surface.

Yes, you were right: it would have been wise for him to freeze over the lake. Or not, as the case may be, because… Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

But he hadn't put his own protective coating over the ice, and now it splinters beneath his feet and sends him plunging into the frigid water below. His startled cry is quickly cut off, and what sound escapes his lips echoes through the darkened forest for a moment before being swallowed by the night.

His heavy coat and boots drag him down but he struggles, flailing his limbs in his desperation to get to the surface. He can't breathe, can't open his mouth for fear of the water that will come rushing in. His eyes fix on the hole he fell through and he kicks his legs frantically, reaching out his hand towards it.

A dark shadow passes overhead, its shape distorted by the icy surface. It reaches the edge of the hole and peers down at him. He could almost swear it smiles.

Then ice spreads across the gap, sealing over his only escape route. It shouldn't be possible—ghosts and demons shouldn't be able to perform magic like that, not even ones masquerading as Ur.

But if he just reaches it, then maybe he could break through… Except that the cold is seeping into his bones and making his limbs heavy. His struggling is becoming weaker, black is eating away at the edges of his vision, and he can't breathe, can't–

He inhales sharply, and the water is like ice-cold knives shattering in his mouth and scraping down his throat into his lungs.

Above the ice, everything is still. The moonlight sets the frozen lake gleaming and bathes the mounds of powdery snow in a faint glow. The trees ringing the clearing stand silent and still, except for when a gust of wind rustles their needles or bare limbs. The moonlight casts them in shadow, but it would be stranger still if there were no shadows to be seen at all, would it not? The ice itself is empty, a perfectly smooth surface that glitters in tranquil peace, belying the drama below.

In fact, it all seems so peaceful, so _normal_ , that you might well wonder whether there were ever any ghosts at all. A fair question.

If you're truly that curious, then you might ask the owl sitting in one of the evergreens by the lakeshore. All the commotion has made her ruffle her feathers in alarm, but she is settling back down now and has seen everything with her watchful eyes. If you were to ask her what she saw this night, she would likely relate the tale of an incomprehensible human boy who ran through, stirred up a ruckus, and fell through the ice. Ghosts or human folly? If she has seen any ghosts, she shows no sign of it.

What, you do not trust our avian friend's judgment? You are not so easily convinced, I see. Well, you could always ask the cat stalking around the lake, black fur fluffed out as she glides across the snow like an inky shadow. Cats are, after all, animals known for being able to sense the supernatural. We might question this one's intelligence for choosing to prowl about on a winter night so cold, but her senses seem to be intact. If she has sensed anything out of the ordinary crossing the veil between spirit world and our own, she shows no sign of it.

Still? You are a tough customer. Your reluctance to accept such a preposterous assertion is understandable. Surely _something_ must have chased him to the lake. So, we must find a more credible account to search out the truth. You do not trust the animals, so perhaps you would prefer a human explanation?

Ah, the tricky part is that there are no human witnesses to the event, aside from the one trapped beneath the ice. No living human will be able to give you their testimony. In fact, it will be a long time before another human passes by here.

Don't be too harsh on the guild—they will undoubtedly search for their missing friend, but his footsteps will vanish before morning and not even a dragon slayer's nose will be able to find the trail muffled beneath the snow. They will search and, in the end, they will come up emptyhanded. It will be an enduring mystery.

The ice will have melted and the trees blossomed to herald the coming of spring before they find themselves at the lake. A discerning eye might catch glimpses of hopelessness and melancholy when they notice the shadow of the person who is not there, but today they are just here for swimming, perhaps for a distraction from the mystery that has already dragged on for months. If they suspect the secret lurking in the waters below, glimpse any indication of ravenous ghosts or inky shadow-demons, feel a lingering sensation of being watched… Well, they show no sign of it. They will depart, and leave the lake lonely once more.

It will be much, much longer before the truth is revealed. Or part of the truth, as the case may be. One of the children playing in the water will stumble across a bone hidden in the sand at the bottom of the lake. The poor thing will never be the same.

The guild won't take notice until the recovery team finds a necklace, now covered in reddish rust. Then they will come and cry their tears and ask their questions. The mystery is not as solved as they might wish it to be. Perhaps they will think it an accident, or maybe the idea of murder will play in the back of their minds. Would a lake not make a good dumping ground for a body?

But they did not discuss that here at the lake. They will leave again, although occasionally one or another will drop by for a time, faces drawn and mouths full of words for a friend long gone. If they ever suspect that ghosts are haunting the lake with their twisted shadows, ever feel curious, mournful eyes upon them, they show no sign of it.

What, you wonder why we must bother with this tangent instead of answering the question of the ghosts? The more discerning of you may have realized that we are trying to answer not one question but two. Or, perhaps more accurately, two parts of the same question.

It is understandable that you are more interested in the first. It is more dramatic, is surrounded by more mystery and intrigue. What did he see that night? What chased him? Was there anything at all?

The second question is, I feel, more pertinent, but we can leave speculation of the future behind for now. Or leave the present and return to the past. Whichever. Ah, you have not yet reached the point where they become one and the same. Don't worry, you will one day, as all living creatures do. But you needn't worry about that yet.

For now, we will stand once again at the haunted lakeshore in the middle of the night in the dead of winter, looking out at a frozen lake with only an owl and a cat and a drowning boy for company. And, perhaps, the ghosts and demons, depending on what you believe.

You have found the testimony of the animals unsatisfactory and the account of the future-present-past unsatisfying, so I suppose that the only opinion left to give is mine. If you were not convinced by the others then you may not be convinced now either, but perhaps you might at least hear me out.

The answer to the second question is yes. Of course, that is not the question you truly want the answer to, but you must forgive me for my preoccupation with it. Still, I will not test your patience any more than is necessary, so we will move back to the question of interest.

Were there ghosts and demons haunting the lake that night?

I think not. You might find it ridiculous or contradictory, but I am something of a skeptic in these matters. Oh, there are undoubtedly ghosts that walk this world, this I know. But that night? After much reflection, it seems to me that there was nothing more than the products of a mind addled by sleep and nightmares and memories. He certainly had enough demons in his past already, did he not? Perhaps it is not surprising that one of them eventually got the better of him.

I believe in ghosts and demons; it would be foolish not to. And yet…

Perhaps it is not the ghosts that attach themselves to passersby and haunt them with a frightful vengeance that are the ones we should be the most afraid of. Perhaps it is, instead, the ghosts that we create ourselves and drag out into the night behind us wherever we go.

The ghosts that we become.

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 **Note: Gray is the narrator, if you missed that. Or Gray's ghost, I guess. I also kinda sorta lied about it being an omniscient narrator. It's meant to be, but if you think about it then it can't be. He's a bit of an unreliable narrator ;) I will say that certain things pick up entirely new meanings if you read them while knowing that it's Gray speaking.**

 **So why is the prose so un-Gray-like if he's the narrator? Because I was mimicking a style, obviously :P No, but I did try to reconcile that. It's unofficially set looong after the actual events of the tale. I imagine that he would have eventually changed a lot as a ghostie, and that once he has an audience he might want to drag the story out so that you don't "leave the lake lonely once more". Yeah, yeah? No? Okay, I'm done. Also, I imagine that he's distanced himself from his time alive because (1) it's been a long time and he's been stuck haunting a lake by himself, which would inevitably change his mindset eventually, and (2) it's probably easier not to identify too much with the boy of the story. And...that's probably more explanation than you wanted.**

 **Poor baby finally lost it :3 But I dropped huge swathes of hints and foreshadowing, so surely you didn't really think this would go well ;)**

 **And I leave you with this: _Phantasmagoria—_ a shifting series of phantasms, illusions, or deceptive appearances, as in a dream or as created by the imagination.**

 **emmahoshi: Sorry? lol I tend to post within a few-hour window every time, so I guess it's just started coinciding when with you leave X) Aw, you had to google it and I went and defined it for you at the end XD Hehe, my sister used to spell the same word a half-dozen ways on the same page. She figured that if we knew what she meant, why did the actual spelling matter? XD Thankfully, she's grown out of that. Lots of animals live in cities :P Like raccoons and stray cats/dogs and stuff. No ghost iced the hole over—Gray did. Poor baby panicked and lost it. There are a few intimations, but I think the most obvious one was the one reader-directed aside: _"_ _Yes, you were right, it would have been wise for him to freeze over the lake. Or not, as the case may be, because… Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves."_ Ah, I was hoping people would start to pick up on the narrator at least by the ending line since I dropped some hints, but I guess I was kind of subtle about it X) And yeah, it is kind of a depressing thing lol Sorry about giving you the second worst narrator XD**


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